Remember all those pictures of Drow in the splatbooks? How they all look cool and decadent, tough, evil, vaguely pervy and super-cool?

Sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of me being both sexy and dangerous.

Well this girl was kept at the back of the class when they made those pictures. Clutching a felt wolf.

Imagine you are a basically nice person growing up in a society where slavery, racism and misandry are positively encouraged. A society in which you, by birth, occupy the highest rung. You aren't really into that shit at all, but there is no other option. And you have an INT of six. And you look a bit funny.

If you are highly intelligent maybe you become a radical or a revolutionary or you slowly decay into a kind of champagne socialist. But if you are too stupid to rationalise things then you have to do it a different way.

You can't read serious books because they don't import them and you wouldn't understand them anyway, but you can read the mass-produced barbarian chap-books that the merchants use for ballast because they are too irrelevant for the authorities to control. And you know there are White Elves somewhere. And you know there are Northern Wastes because you overhear your aunts talking about them.

Mum says you can't pray to Lloth to make you a Barbarian, but you know in your heart that's not true.

It starts small, maybe you get into wearing furs. Impractical in Drownesia, but not that odd. You want to learn how to use a sword. A two-handed sword. Strange. But mothers so glad you are finally taking an interest in violence she will give you whatever you want. You spend a lot of time outdoors.

'Well, she doesn't have many friends in class.'

Franzetta poster on the wall. Girls will be girls.

Making your own toy wolf.

Getting into shamanism.

'She gets full marks in religious education'.

Maybe Drow family trees don't even count male members, so you spend hours in the family library, leafing through the records, looking for a gap. Fantasising.

Could there be a Nornrik branch to the family? A black (white) sheep relative? A secret uncle? A torrid affair? A secret romance in the wastes? A family secret? A BARBARIAN SECRET?

"WHY DO I FEEL THESE THINGS?"

"IT HAS TO MEAN SOMETHING DOESN'T IT?

I'M NOT MAKING IT UP MOTHER!!"

Family shame and they stare at you in the street, but you can feel the song of the North Wind singing in your veins. The call of the untamed wastes, far from the corruption of civilisation. You have never left home. You learn the ship schedules. You save your pocket money. And it's a lot, because you are royalty.

The captain doesn't want to take you. But its Drownesia, and you are female royalty. No-one in your entire life has ever tried to stop you getting what you want.

NORTH! TO THE HOME OF GIANTS AND WINTER WOLVES!

You even tell people you are a barbarian and nobody says you aren't. It's like they don't even know. And they haven't made you go home yet. You can be whatever you say you are.

If you believe in something deeply enough you can make it true.

(I have survived one session and already caught a snow leopard. I was looking for a Worg but fuck it.)

Friday, 27 December 2013

"We decided to try and enter the enemy tunnels.
Cutting away the soft wetclay and
removing debris in frantic working an entrance was made in about20 minutes. We put on our Proto sets - oxygen
apparatus for breathing inmine rescue
and gassy areas. taking four sappers and my sergeant, all armedwith revolvers, knuckle-knives and grenades
we crawled into the Germantunnel and
started up the gallery. Now, Proto sets are alright for workingin an ordinary civilian mine gallery, but crawling
along or bent over in awar time tunnel
of 4 x 3 feet is not so good -and
fighting in a Proto setis an art to be
learned.

Although the German tunnels were a bit larger than
our own, the size wasstill very small.
So, in the dark with our torches we crept down the Germantunnel towards the blown in face. We found no
bodies there. We returned the way we had come and went further up to find out
more of their system.Going towards the German
front line for 40 or 50 yards we came to a fork, with another tunnel leading at
an angle towards our lines, so we knew than that this must lead to the workings
we had blown in at point A. We went down the tunnel and found the face blown in
and the bodies, or parts of, two Germans. We also heard out party clearing an entrance
and this was done in a few minutes.

As we had gained so much enemy tunnel I decided to
try to have a go and destroy as much as we could without too much loss to our
own men. I instructed the party to prepare two heavy charges, and for an NCO
andsapper to carry them and follow us
some distance behind. My party of six then set off back up the German tunnel
knowing that we should most likely run into trouble as the enemy would
certainly send in a rescue or fighting party after two explosions.

With myself leading and my sergeant behind me
followed by four sappers, all in single file, we had just started down their main
tunnel when we heard and then saw torches coming in the distance towards us.
Their heavy boots made such a noise and they were shouting or talking very
loud. The atmosphere in the tunnel was still thick with dust or gas from the
explosions. Not knowing how many of them there were I decided it would be best
if we came back and waited just past the fork junction to see what would
happen.

We waited for a few minutes with our torches out
and all quiet. Then suddenly there appeared through the semi-darkness with their
torches blazing in front of them, seven Germans, first a sort of NCO armed with
a revolver, then five armed with revolvers and grenades, and the last was a
junior officer also armed with a revolver. For a moment I thought they were
coming down the tunnel straight at us, but no, they decided to go down the
other tunnel. They still were making a lot of noise considering the job they
were on. My thoughts went to my own two men who were coming up the tunnel with
the two charges - they would run right into the German party. We waited until
the Germans had gone a few yards past the fork so as to get up the room to get up
behind them, then we kept in our stockinged feet silently up behind the enemy
in single file.

Ever so quietly we gained on them and in a few seconds
I was only about four yards behind the last man, the officer, and then all of a
sudden they saw the torches of my other two men coming towards them. Thinking
they were their own men from the face they shouted in German, and they all stopped.
Then, as no reply came they jabbered a bit amongst themselves for a second or
two, then the NCO in front fired a shot down the tunnel. Back came a shot from
my boys right on the second. So now, being only a few yards behind the enemy I
put on my torch and so did my men behind me. The Germans were taken completely
by surprise, absolutely trapped, with their enemy in front and behind them. The
man in front of me, who was their officer, turned round half facing me and with
my torch shining in his face, he had his revolver pointed at me in a second;
but he sort of hesitated, no doubt struck dumb by the grotesque sight of a
hooded body coming at him.

It must have been an awful sight for them to see
us in a Proto set in that dim semi-darkness.

I shot him before he recovered
from his shock. At the same time keeping my body down to the floor level to
allow my sergeant in a crouching position to shoot over me, and the others
behind to fire over us. This was something we had practiced in training.

The German party never had a chance, their NCO was
shot in the leg and my sergeant kicked his revolver out of his hand, but he
rolled over, grabbed his gun again and was starting shooting, so the sergeant
shot him again. The fighting did not last more than two or three minutes, then
one of the Germans shouted 'Kamerad' and we soon disarmed the three enemy left standing.
But the Germans fought well and hard, and if they had not been subject to such
bad luck in getting trapped, they might have won the fight and killed the lot
of us.

The casualties were Germans: one officer, one NCO,
two men dead; three captured alive, one very badly wounded; Canadians: three
men wounded, one badly. The last two sappers of my own party in the rear never
fired a shot but both got hit themselves. We knew the enemy would be sending
another larger rescue and fighting party so we laid our first explosive charge
on a time fuse 50 yards up the main tunnel from the fork, dropped one near the
fork itself, and ran as fast as we were able with our Proto sets still on to
our own tunnel entrance.

We had just reached the entrance when both charges
went off and knocked us all flat on our faces with the enemy tunnel caving in
at the back of us, catching the last sapper of our party and trapping him in
falling debris and timbers; we pulled him out but one of his legs was broken.

Getting back into our own tunnels we laid an
explosive charge. This completed the blowing of the enemy tunnels and we knew
we had stopped all the German works in that direction for a few weeks to
come."

Lieutenant John Westacott

2nd Canadian TC

Westacott later had another more deadly encounter
at Mount Sorrel, when he and a complete section of his men were trapped underground
during a surprise German surface attack which captured the British front line
trenches.Unknowing, the Canadian tunnellers emerged unconcernedly
from a shaft at the end of their shift, to be spotted by the Germans.

Diving back down the shaft and sounding alarm bells
as they went, they blew in several other entrances to the tunnel system, and
waited. The Germans piled down after them and one of the most grisly battles of
the war took place.

Fighting with grenades, pistols, rifles, and
hand-to-hand with knives, bayonets and even razor sharp spades in the tiny
galleries, the encounter was horrific. Westacott himself was almost to lose an
arm, whilst sixty out of eighty of his shift were killed or wounded. The struggle
lasted almost twenty-four hours - and the stopped just as suddenly as it had
begun. When the tunnellers plucked up the energy and courage to tentatively
peep out of a shaft again, they discovered that the Canadian infantry had
recaptured the trench.

Wednesday, 25 December 2013

I have always wanted super powers, so I gave myself stats and exposed myself to the terrigen mists, which I found here.

Then I thought, why stop there? Get some free NPC's. So I statted up and exposed a bunch of people I knew off the internet.

If you are worried that you are not on this list, it counts people by the strength and disitinciveness of their personality, not how much I like them. TRENT.

(I had no idea that the Terrigen mists made you stupid, but it looks like they generally do. So I have created 'Special School' superheroes. No-one has a Reason above 'Poor'. Tom turned out a fucking badass,, virtually a real super hero Not sure who the leader would be. based on these stats it looks like either Zak or Scrap.)

Anyway, if you fuck with disabled people in Otherpool or bully the Special children in class, this is who turns up. Bounding out of a yellow bus.

(If anyone doesn't want to be in this, let me know and I will take you down.)

Thursday, 19 December 2013

I am having emotional problems with my main PC. So I am making him an NPC and setting him free to wander the FLAILSNAILS Cosmos without me. If it's meant to be he will come back on his own.

Anil of MANPAC was born in Noism'sYoo Suin* game. He was rescued from some goblin things at the exact moment that another character died. His first rolls were for a random name and an random gender. He was a eunach. His name was Anil. His highest stat was a WIS of 14. He needed a god. After thinking for about 14 seconds, his player saw a nerd wearing a nintendo t-shirt across the room.

"His god is Pac-Man! No, wait, that sounds stupid. His god is MANPAC."

And so a legend was born.

From day one he made more money robbing the people who came to rob him than he ever did from getting up in dungeons. Assaulting bandits, hiding from pandas, lying to quaggoths, great days. Then Noisms moved away to get a better job. Anil arrived in the Cobalt Reach. A land built upon the backs of dead gods. He was level three.

In his first FLAILSNAILS game Jeff Rients charged a group of 18 webbed 2nd level mutants with Anil. Then got bored and ran off to joust a chaos knight. Shoe Skogen hung around and saved his life. He spent a lot of time at zero hit points. But he levelled the fuck up.

(As a list of adventures, briefly. Argued with bats. knocked out by jacklemen. Chased by zombie mastadons. Captured in echo palace. Starts shit in Echo Palace. Throws adopted son off ledge. Rescued by Zach Marx Webber. Finds THE PORTAL ROOM. Spends actual months of non-game time going on and out of the PORTAL ROOM. Finally gets to lowest level. Captured by driders. Tricks Driders with spell. Fights Mountain giant underground. Actually manages to rescue some dryads. Ends up in north pole via THE PORTAL ROOM. Goes back to cobalt reach via ship. Hears rumours of the missing Eye Of Vorn. Decides MUST pirate eye of dead god. Grabs Sir Mannings army. fights way out of Cobalt Reach. Gets to Abu Zin Zeer. Finds eye. Eye is now Mecha-Beholder-Golem. Eye Kills Chris H (Persistent voice of sanity) and petrifies Zach Marx Weber. Mission a bust. Goes wizardly Isle of Vrokk to de-petrify ZMW. Breaks into multiple wizards arcologies, meets daemon. Loses left hand. Tricks daemon, tricks mind-flayer, tricks wizard with mind-flayer. Escapes with macguffin. Gets ZMW de-petrified. Exchanges 'impossible' task for promise of new left hand. Completes impossible confidence scam of high-level wizard IN ONE SESSION, FLAWLESS. Still a high point. Goes to Vornheim, assists with defence of city. Sees Hex-King taken down (sort of). Decides to rob house of dead Lich. Buys own siege tower. Bats once again augmentative and annoying lodgers. helps eusyram retrieve fragment of crystal dream. Betrays everybody, see prev post.)

Now I send him unto you Internet. Let this PC pass be transformed by the holy fire onto an entry on a table, a random encounter or a plot point. My only rules for using Anil is that you have to be somewhat true to his god and somewhat true to him.

MANPAC charges endlessly through the dark consuming all he can before the ghosts reach him. He is chaotic, tending a bit towards good. At least his is not directly evil. He hates undead and consumes them wherever he can, especially ghosts. He likes to move his followers through realities or 'levels' and they have learnt to expect this.

Anil is stupid but amazingly crafty and lucky. He lies freely and sometimes brilliantly despite his CHA of 9. He often cycles through stages of mania and suicidal self-destructive depression. He has no patience of any kind for anything. He is deceptive, tricky and ruthless to what he considers 'bad' people. He has never gone out of his way to hurt any average or 'good' people without some kind of reason. If you save his life he will stick by you, even if you die or get petrified.

he looks like a squat vaguely asian man with a heavy build.

this is how he thinks he looks. he actually looks like a shit version of this.

You can't tell though because since he went insane from looking at a rug, he no longer believes he has a head. he can't sense it there so he wears an insect mask he got in Bellet Osc. That's how he knows where his head is.

and in fact he looks like this most of the time

He has a neck-tattoo of Harley Quinn committing suicide and another MANPAC tattoo. His left hand is a yellow and black banded starfish.

Currently wearing the plate-mail of a paladin of the Titan of Fear. He usually carries an axe and a bow and THIS.

the eyes follow you round the room, but never both eyes for the same person

This sooper-powerful luminescent heraldic lion shield is the best thing he has ever owned. It's probably worth more than he is.

So, armour, axe, bow, insect mask, starfish hand, tattoos, glowing lion shield. But in case that wasn't enough. he is driving a team of eight oxen and pulling his very own 80 ft siege tower made of bones and full of impudent bats.

There's one more thing. Anil accidentally drank the soul of a half-elf sorcerer called Orgun Greasgraft in the Hex Kings Palace. If Anil falls under the spell of mind-altering magics, or magical sleep, Orgun will become the dominant personality. And he will not give up the body willingly. He is an intelligent wily coward who likes not being in dungeons and not taking risks of any kind. His stats are

Veins of the Earth Hardcopy

‘They've knocked it out of the park. Hit it for six. Got it in an arm bar in the first round. Pick your sport, pick your metaphor, doesn’t matter: the point is clear – so soon after _Fire on the Velvet Horizon_, Patrick Stuart and Scrap Princess prove once again that something as unlikely as an RPG supplement can be art, of the most impressive kind. An amazing work.’ - China Mieville

FIRE ON THE VELVET HORIZON

"Superpositioning with strange panache, Velvet Horizon is an (outstanding) indie role-playing-game supplement, and an (outstanding) example of experimental quasi-/meta-/sur-/kata-fiction. Also a work of art. Easily one of my standout books of 2015." - China Mieville" Maybe my favourite thing we've made. If you like Scraps work click the pic.